I-475 expansion leaving Toledo neighbors worried about their homes
https://www.13abc.com/2023/06/02/i-475-expansion-leaving-toledo-neighbors-worried-about-their-homes/?outputType=amp
Does this segment of Interstate 475 need to be expanded to six lanes?
Yes. Traffic counts on the section in question vary from 56,000 to 91,000 vpd.
I see one spot where ODOT may have to take private property - there's a narrow section just west of Talmadge Rd adjacent to Imperial St. They *could* preserve the home facing I-475 and just turn Imperial street into a one-way section, but ODOT may have less resistance if they just take that one home and cul-de-sac Surrey Rd and Imperial Dr. https://goo.gl/maps/B7pkbKH94vhvba5t7
The rest of it will be tight, but a 6-lane roadway with full inner and outer shoulders can be done with 125' of width. If they keep the current inside shoulder width, they could do it in 108-110' That leaves less room than before for guardrails, noise walls, and such, but ODOT should be able to make it work.
Quote from: The Ghostbuster on June 04, 2023, 12:35:03 PM
Does this segment of Interstate 475 need to be expanded to six lanes?
Yes it does.
Quote"Hopefully we can thread the needle between preserving neighborhoods in our city and figuring out how to get a package from amazon to Ann Arbor faster by about 4 minutes," said Sam Melden, Toledo City Councilman.
If that is what is driving the project (pardon the expression), it's a sad commentary.
That is a strange comment. There are over 90,000 vehicles that use that part of I-475 every day and it's only four lanes I find it utterly insane that getting a package from Amazon to Ann Arbor 4 minutes faster is the reason when this highway is undersized.
I wonder if Councilman Melden is maybe being a bit sarcastic there...
IIRC, that part of Toledo/Sylvania Township is more affluent than the part closer to I-75. I wonder if that will have an effect on any widening.
Quote from: Scott5114 on June 05, 2023, 04:36:45 AM
I wonder if Councilman Melden is maybe being a bit sarcastic there...
Given he's an anti-Kernals per a Google search of him I'm thinking yes.
Waiting for the 'induced demand' crowd to surface in three... two...
Mike
I am not a proponent of the 'induced demand' argument. One author I've read argued that the induced demand argument is based on two assumptions: 1. "The demand for automobile travel is infinite and can never be sated." 2. "Urban auto travel produces no benefits and is merely a deadweight loss on society." The author considered both assumptions equally absurd.
Quote from: JREwing78 on June 04, 2023, 02:50:48 PM
I see one spot where ODOT may have to take private property - there's a narrow section just west of Talmadge Rd adjacent to Imperial St. They *could* preserve the home facing I-475 and just turn Imperial street into a one-way section, but ODOT may have less resistance if they just take that one home and cul-de-sac Surrey Rd and Imperial Dr. https://goo.gl/maps/B7pkbKH94vhvba5t7
It would be a tight fit, but could they not just convert the existing shoulder into a third travel lane, then construct a full depth paved shoulder to the right in the remaining space?
https://maps.app.goo.gl/2kZFTK4sLn71UNEZ8?g_st=ic
It's not like any of this stuff is made of stone and built to last like the Grecian and Roman temples. Houses get old, they deteriorate, they get torn down. 50 years from now, the problem of the tight fit will fix itself when nobody wants 100-year-old houses sitting next to the freeway.
Quote from: sprjus4 on June 05, 2023, 12:37:24 PM
Quote from: JREwing78 on June 04, 2023, 02:50:48 PM
I see one spot where ODOT may have to take private property - there's a narrow section just west of Talmadge Rd adjacent to Imperial St. They *could* preserve the home facing I-475 and just turn Imperial street into a one-way section, but ODOT may have less resistance if they just take that one home and cul-de-sac Surrey Rd and Imperial Dr. https://goo.gl/maps/B7pkbKH94vhvba5t7
It would be a tight fit, but could they not just convert the existing shoulder into a third travel lane, then construct a full depth paved shoulder to the right in the remaining space?
https://maps.app.goo.gl/2kZFTK4sLn71UNEZ8?g_st=ic
I think they could. They might find they have to turn the street immediately adjacent to I-475 into a one-way only, or buy out the existing owner because they won't accept the loss of 12' of their front lawn, then resell to someone who doesn't care.
All about the $$$ - if it costs more to realign and rebuild the barrier rather than take the home, they'll likely take the home. It's a higher-end neighborhood, so probably cheaper just to realign the barrier.
Will there finally be a direct connection with I-90/Ohio Turnpike?
Just take the homes and build the project right with modern design and safety standards. Enough with this "let's just convert the shoulder crap." Shoulders exists for very good reasons. If you're giving me a choice between a four lane road with shoulders and a six one with no shoulders I'll take the four lane version.
Quote from: Plutonic Panda on June 05, 2023, 06:50:13 PM
Just take the homes and build the project right with modern design and safety standards. Enough with this "let's just convert the shoulder crap." Shoulders exists for very good reasons. If you're giving me a choice between a four lane road with shoulders and a six one with no shoulders I'll take the four lane version.
Huh, why? If there's actual traffic, I'll take the six-lane version.
Quote from: Evan_Th on June 05, 2023, 07:39:43 PM
Quote from: Plutonic Panda on June 05, 2023, 06:50:13 PM
Just take the homes and build the project right with modern design and safety standards. Enough with this "let's just convert the shoulder crap." Shoulders exists for very good reasons. If you're giving me a choice between a four lane road with shoulders and a six one with no shoulders I'll take the four lane version.
Huh, why? If there's actual traffic, I'll take the six-lane version.
At the cost of safety?
I know ED is a sensitive topic(no pun intended) but I'd rather it be done the right way with a properly built six lane freeway taking the amount of homes and businesses as needed to get it done.
Quote from: Plutonic Panda on June 05, 2023, 06:50:13 PM
Just take the homes and build the project right with modern design and safety standards. Enough with this "let's just convert the shoulder crap." Shoulders exists for very good reasons. If you're giving me a choice between a four lane road with shoulders and a six one with no shoulders I'll take the four lane version.
I could go either way on that one. In the perfect world, I agree with you, but Ohio tends to drag its feet until they can afford to do what they consider perfect. Just get it done and fix it later.
Unless the neighbor is Scott Wozniak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_the_Woz), I don't care. With how much traffic there is on I-475, it should be widened.
Quote from: peterj920 on June 05, 2023, 06:15:47 PM
Will there finally be a direct connection with I-90/Ohio Turnpike?
This project is on Toledo's north side east of US-23 towards downtown. The Turnpike runs along the southern Toledo border and northern Maumee border several miles south. Where I-475 and the Turnpike meet up is in a heavily populated area with no ROW at all to put in an interchange.
The Salisbury Rd/Dussel Dr exit is the closest one can get to the Turnpike from I-475. But that still puts you 2 left turns, 6 stoplights, and a mile away from the Turnpike on-ramp. It's Maumee's equivalent of a Breezewood.
In practice, this isn't such a disaster. Folks south of the Maumee River or already on I-75 are just going to use the I-75 interchange with the Turnpike. Folks coming from the NW along US-23 would cut over to I-280 if heading east. If headed west on the Turnpike, they would exit at OH-2 towards the Airport.
Quote from: Plutonic Panda on June 05, 2023, 06:50:13 PM
Just take the homes and build the project right with modern design and safety standards. Enough with this "let's just convert the shoulder crap." Shoulders exists for very good reasons. If you're giving me a choice between a four lane road with shoulders and a six one with no shoulders I'll take the four lane version.
I never meant no shoulder... I was saying, convert the existing shoulder into a travel lane, and then construct a new full depth paved shoulder in the existing grassy area between the pavement and the sound wall.
No new right of way acquisition, fits within the existing footprint, and would provide three 12 foot travel lanes and a full 10 foot paved right shoulder. I never suggested providing zero right shoulder, or even a reduced one.
Edit: It appears there may only be room for a 7 or 8 foot shoulder, but that's still reasonable in that small segment. The sound wall could be pushed out a slight amount and Imperial St narrowed slightly, if full consistency was truly desired. Either way, I'm not seeing a need for a total take of any property.
Quote from: LilianaUwU on June 05, 2023, 08:52:30 PM
Unless the neighbor is Scott Wozniak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_the_Woz), I don't care. With how much traffic there is on I-475, it should be widened.
I would personally bulldoze his house with the killdozer to build a bicycle path.
Quote from: sprjus4 on June 06, 2023, 01:09:14 AM
Quote from: Plutonic Panda on June 05, 2023, 06:50:13 PM
Just take the homes and build the project right with modern design and safety standards. Enough with this "let's just convert the shoulder crap." Shoulders exists for very good reasons. If you're giving me a choice between a four lane road with shoulders and a six one with no shoulders I'll take the four lane version.
I never meant no shoulder... I was saying, convert the existing shoulder into a travel lane, and then construct a new full depth paved shoulder in the existing grassy area between the pavement and the sound wall.
No new right of way acquisition, fits within the existing footprint, and would provide three 12 foot travel lanes and a full 10 foot paved right shoulder. I never suggested providing zero right shoulder, or even a reduced one.
Edit: It appears there may only be room for a 7 or 8 foot shoulder, but that's still reasonable in that small segment. The sound wall could be pushed out a slight amount and Imperial St narrowed slightly, if full consistency was truly desired. Either way, I'm not seeing a need for a total take of any property.
The inside (left) shoulders are substandard width. If the plan includes widening those shoulders, that's another ~20 feet needed.
Quote from: The Ghostbuster on June 04, 2023, 12:35:03 PM
Does this segment of Interstate 475 need to be expanded to six lanes?
Big time, especially during PM rush hour. You have five lanes heading westbound narrowing to two lanes just after Monroe Street (right lane exits at Douglas Road, left lane ends just after Douglas turning five into three). The right lane at Monroe Street is an exit only lane and, more often than not, people stay in the lane until the absolute last moment. If it's a semi getting over, things screech to a halt.
Once you get past Monroe Street is the very busy Secor Road interchange where people are either scrambling to get on 475 from Secor or trying to get over to get ready to exit at Talmadge Road in one mile. If it's a semi getting on from Secor, things screech to a stop or a crawl.
Eastbound used to be a lot worse but the redesign of the 475/75 interchange in west Toledo allows for better flow.
https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=3iYxAAAAIBAJ&sjid=zAEEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5569%2C1207283
When this stretch of 475 was finished in December 1970, Toledo's commissioner of traffic engineering admitted that the roads around the project were not ready to handle the traffic. Fifty plus years later, they still aren't ready.
Quote from: sprjus4 on June 06, 2023, 01:09:14 AM
I never meant no shoulder… I was saying, convert the existing shoulder into a travel lane, and then construct a new full depth paved shoulder in the existing grassy area between the pavement and the sound wall.
No new right of way acquisition, fits within the existing footprint, and would provide three 12 foot travel lanes and a full 10 foot paved right shoulder. I never suggested providing zero right shoulder, or even a reduced one.
Edit: It appears there may only be room for a 7 or 8 foot shoulder, but that’s still reasonable in that small segment. The sound wall could be pushed out a slight amount and Imperial St narrowed slightly, if full consistency was truly desired. Either way, I’m not seeing a need for a total take of any property.
Where does the water go when a new, larger highway surface needs to drain? How do you deal with the loss of that slope on the approach to the underpasses? Plus you're going to have to replace the sound barrier itself with a system that has a high performance barrier. And there's no room to do any of this on the south side: https://goo.gl/maps/bQRUyAgDugNKqVoP9
Honestly, acquiring the adjacent properties is probably the cheaper solution. And far and away the practical one from any engineering standpoint.
Edit: plus how on earth do you stage that construction? Based on the quoted volumes in this thread, there's no way you can single lane it. So more and more trying to wedge a lane into the existing platform becomes a physical impossibility.
^ I was talking about specifically in the original section mentioned near Imperial St, not for the entire highway.
How is drainage managed in the area you linked?
Quote from: sprjus4 on June 07, 2023, 11:51:04 AM
^ I was talking about specifically in the original section mentioned near Imperial St, not for the entire highway.
How is drainage managed in the area you linked?
The area around Imperial is where that physical barriers to such a design are
most pronounced.
I appears as though there is small capacity median drainage but primarily there is drainage pass-through to ditching behind the sound barrier.
Quote from: cbeach40 on June 07, 2023, 10:39:22 AM
Quote from: sprjus4 on June 06, 2023, 01:09:14 AM
I never meant no shoulder... I was saying, convert the existing shoulder into a travel lane, and then construct a new full depth paved shoulder in the existing grassy area between the pavement and the sound wall.
No new right of way acquisition, fits within the existing footprint, and would provide three 12 foot travel lanes and a full 10 foot paved right shoulder. I never suggested providing zero right shoulder, or even a reduced one.
Edit: It appears there may only be room for a 7 or 8 foot shoulder, but that's still reasonable in that small segment. The sound wall could be pushed out a slight amount and Imperial St narrowed slightly, if full consistency was truly desired. Either way, I'm not seeing a need for a total take of any property.
Where does the water go when a new, larger highway surface needs to drain? How do you deal with the loss of that slope on the approach to the underpasses? Plus you're going to have to replace the sound barrier itself with a system that has a high performance barrier. And there's no room to do any of this on the south side: https://goo.gl/maps/bQRUyAgDugNKqVoP9
Sure there is. They need to relocate the sound barrier south right up against the property line. They need to replace the above-ground drainage with properly-sized storm sewers in the median and along the ROW on each side of the roadway. I can't see how that would be worse than taking out massive chunks of neighborhood on either (or both) sides of I-475.
I would have done none of those things if full ROW allowed me to maintain above-ground drainage ditches, but in a heavily urban area that's not practical. Neither is taking out a massive number of properties (and their associated property tax base) because the civil engineers can't figure out how to put drainage underground.
Quote from: JREwing78 on June 10, 2023, 11:54:12 PM
Sure there is. They need to relocate the sound barrier south right up against the property line. They need to replace the above-ground drainage with properly-sized storm sewers in the median and along the ROW on each side of the roadway. I can't see how that would be worse than taking out massive chunks of neighborhood on either (or both) sides of I-475.
I would have done none of those things if full ROW allowed me to maintain above-ground drainage ditches, but in a heavily urban area that's not practical. Neither is taking out a massive number of properties (and their associated property tax base) because the civil engineers can't figure out how to put drainage underground.
Constructing what you propose would be far more expensive than buying out those properties, and the legacy cost to maintain that infrastructure would far exceed any tax base they would provide. Though there may be political motivation to do so of course, we shall see.
At least that solution is practical and constructible. Retrofitting the existing shoulder as the earlier post suggested is nigh on physically impossible to stage and construct, and would leave you with an awful design to deal with going forward.
When I was going to college at UT and living in that area off of I-475 & Monroe nearly 40 years ago, the stretch in question was a fairly free-flowing freeway almost 24/7. And around that time, I-475 was 2x2 all the way from Monroe Street most of the way down the US-23 duplex to I-75 in Perrysburg.
As far as urban growth, once you went west of McCord Road (the first paralleling artery west of I-475/US-23) you quickly went from residential to country.
That has long since changed since the 80s and I-475 between US-23 and I-75 is the only real freeway connection to downtown and points east from this area. And as a result, I-475/US-23 has added a lane in each direction, added a Dorr Street interchange and reconfigured both the SR-2/Airport Highway and US-20/Central Avenue interchanges to adapt to the larger area population. The east-west section of I-475 is currently the small neck of a horizontal hourglass that needs to be enlarged.
And here come the NIMBY's...
https://www.toledoblade.com/local/transportation/2023/07/20/i-475-proposal-addresses-phantom-problems-critics-say-during-meeting/stories/20230720130?utm_source=theblade&utm_medium=newsroom&utm_campaign=storyref
"When empty-nesters Allyson Viertlbeck and her husband, Tony, bought a house on Devon Hill Road that backed up to I-475 a little more than two years ago, they knew there would be freeway noise.
But the racket from speeding cars and jake-braking trucks behind the house they thought would be their 'forever home' turned out to be much more than they expected.
'It is super, super loud. It is a racetrack,' Mrs. Viertlbeck said Thursday evening during a meeting organized by opponents of an I-475 widening proposal they say will only make the freeway noisier, rather than correcting safety and congestion problems the Ohio Department of Transportation says exist there.
'What they want to do is just going to make things worse,' said Brett Dupont, who lives on Surrey Road near the freeway's Talmadge Road ramps. 'It's not going to help anything with the speed or the noise.'
'I find nothing redeeming in widening I-[4]75 through the neighborhoods. Nothing,' Peggy Daly-Masternak, who lives near the freeway's Douglas Road interchange and is organizing an I-475 Neighborhoods Coalition, said after hearing several testimonials during the meeting she organized at the Sanger Branch library.
Just over 100 people filled a conference room there.
ODOT hired consultant Mannik & Smith of Toledo late last year for $8 million to do detailed planning for I-475's roughly four-mile section between U.S. 23 and Douglas Road that has daily traffic counts ranging from 53,550 to 79,404.
Built in the 1960s and significantly repaired in 1994 and 1995, the freeway is due for reconstruction regardless of whether it is expanded. The traffic now using part of it meets a federal standard for adding a third lane in each direction to the two lanes I-475 now has west of Monroe Street to the U.S. 23 junction, Kacey Young, the capital programs administrator at ODOT's Bowling Green district office, said in December.
But information Ms. Daly-Masternak distributed at the meeting Thursday cast doubt on both the congestion and safety justifications for the project.
Typical delays in the targeted area amount to only about a minute, she repeated at the meeting, and the 295 crashes that ODOT counted there between 2019 and 2021 represent a rate so low that the odds of being in one are comparable to the odds of being dealt a royal flush playing poker.
Widening the freeway, Ms. Daly-Masternak said, will take some homes out of a housing market in crisis in an affordable part of Toledo, worsen noise and air quality, and reduce property values. She suggested that what ODOT should be doing instead is to convert I-475 in that area to a boulevard, as Buffalo, N.Y., already plans to do with two of its expressways rather than widen them.
Jan Meyer, who lives on Woodmont Road near a part of I-475 between Douglas and the I-75 'Jeep Split' that was widened about a decade ago, said her experience has been just as Ms. Daly-Masternak warned will happen farther west.
'The noise went up and the speeds went up after it went from four lanes to six,' she said.
And several audience members theorized that speed is a cause of many of I-475's crashes, so making it easier for traffic to go faster will not help.
Ms. Daly-Masternak called on audience members to help her with neighborhood-level organizing, fund-raising, and brainstorming ways to resist the ODOT proposal, such as a possible letter-writing campaign to city leaders.
Kelsie Hoagland, a spokesman at ODOT's district office, said earlier Thursday the department expects to receive a preliminary draft of Mannik & Smith's report during the spring of 2024.
No construction money has been allocated for the project, which has a ballpark cost estimate of $186 million, Ms. Hoagland said.
She said that in 2020, ODOT estimated the cost of rebuilding the highway as it is at $154 million, while milling and resurfacing would cost $136 million.
Several Toledo City Council members attended but ODOT did not send anyone to the meeting Thursday evening because 'we were not formally made aware of it,' Ms. Hoagland said.
ODOT currently is widening I-475 from four lanes to six between the Ohio Turnpike and U.S. 24. So far no consideration has been made public about widening the other remaining four-lane section between U.S. 24 and the I-75 junction in Perrysburg, which would require major bridge work at the Maumee River."
Ohio's DOT should just ignore the NIMBYs and widen all remaining four lane segments to six lanes. I understand their concerns, but sometimes a road just needs to be expanded, and Interstate 475 definitely needs expansion.
Quote from: countysigns on July 28, 2023, 09:02:04 PM
She said that in 2020, ODOT estimated [...] milling and resurfacing would cost $136 million.
What type of material are they using to resurface the highway?!?
Quote from: sprjus4 on July 28, 2023, 10:45:00 PM
Quote from: countysigns on July 28, 2023, 09:02:04 PM
She said that in 2020, ODOT estimated [...] milling and resurfacing would cost $136 million.
What type of material are they using to resurface the highway?!?
Good question. The math isn't mathing; no way a ground-up rebuild comes in only $20 million higher that a resurface.